Facebook to fix system which tried to suggest ads for ‘faggots’

[Fearless]

The system asks advertisers to draw up a list of the keywords that reflect their target customer’s online activity before they post an ad.

When a new advert is set up with this list, the system automatically generates some related terms it thinks they should consider using.

But as Darren Hemmings, blogging on the Music Ally website, found to his surprise this month, some keywords prompted Facebook to suggest searching for ‘faggot (slang)’.

He said: “I was left speechless [...] Is this really a word Facebook should be using within its platform – a word I could probably get fired and/or arrested for using in work or on the street?”

http://www.pinknews.co.uk/2012/02/27/facebook-to-fix-system-after-it-suggested-ads-for-faggots/

[William769]

1. Recommended.

[dipsydoodle]

2. They'd be onto a loser in the UK on FB.

because as Ive pointed before we've got a food stuff with that name which is to what Kirsty McColl referred when she sung "you cheap lousy faggot" in Fairytale of New York.

Aside from that word searches can't cope with letter spacing. A simple search of the word on FB will confirm this.

I'm sure Darren Hemmings is well aware of this and is writing for the sake of writing.

[Fearless]

3. FB took the ad request for

Music Ally and prompted them to also classify it under the phrase "faggot (slang)". It's pretty clear what that really means in this case.

[dipsydoodle]

4. I think there is some information missing here somewhere

Obviously not your fault. He doesn't mention what caused that word to be thrown up. Search his name and Music Ally

to find articles he's written.

[Fearless]

5. Let me try to clear it up based on what I know about the process...

When FB takes requests for ads, it "tags" the ad with keywords to classify it or categorize it with similar ads. This "tagging" is used to determine whose profiles get what ads--trying to tailor ads to specific people based on the content of their FB profile. All this is done instantly each time you load your FB page.

When uploading an ad for Music Ally, the author is prompted to choose some keywords to "tag" the ad to so that the ad will be shown to people it will likely be relevant for. (This is very common across all internet advertising actually, also it is the core of youtube video searching and many blogs today.) The FB program used also suggests some keywords based off a database of keywords that the program has in memory for the author to choose. This is done to be helpful to the author and to more accurately display their ads to a relevant audience.

FB ads were originally NOTORIOUS for poor ad choices. As a gay man, I received countless gay dating/hook up websites, foot fetish ads (not kidding), and HIV testing / AIDS support group ads! At the very beginning I would frequently get links to pornographic material. While I don't care if that happens to me... a 15 year old gay boy's parents might have problems with that, and I also don't like that they equated gay to porn so readily. Much of that was weeded out in the last few years. Now I still get dating websites, although I also get education related ones (as I am a high school teacher), and many for interests I actually have.

The author was shocked because when he uploaded an ad for a gay-friendly music site, one of the suggested "tags" was the epithet "faggot" classified as &quot slang)", which is still completely unacceptable.

[dipsydoodle]

6. Thanks for the explanation and the illustration

Given that the site is music related maybe the term he used was Meat Loaf which would've thrown up what you mentioned and Swedish Meat Balls.